Contemporary sound of Mexico – listen to this 217-songs compilation

It’s interesting how sometimes other people discover something that is happening in your city and you did not have an idea of that. One day I woke up and saw a message from Krištof – a Slovak friend I met during my studies in Spain. In the message, there was a link to Bandcamp with a music compilation and a question if I would like to make a review of that. So here is my review.

Centro de Acopio Sonoro is the name of the music collection made by a group of Ibero 90.9 collaborators with a group of Mexican and international artists as fundraising instrument, in an effort to help reconstruction and relief duties of the victims and communities affected by the natural phenomena that struck central and southern Mexico during recent times.

Centro de Acopio Sonoro or CAS (to make it shorter), has two editions or albums, one of them with 217 songs from different artists and different genres, and the CAS~, the electronic collection with 36 tracks. You can listen to it and get more information and if you want to help you can purchase the albums from $100 MXN( approx. €5) here.

The default song of CAS is “I Don’t Know Why” from the band Sadfields, an independent emerging band from Mexico. The genre of the band is alternative rock noise, the song sounds good and caught my attention. The first songs are a type of relaxed music, like Wet baes, a Mexican producer of 80’s vibes. The sounds are great and smooth, perfect for working in some creative atmosphere or just for chill. After these songs, the playlist continues with some more energetic like punk, rock, alternative. The structure basically changes from something quiet and relaxed into something more energetic.

The CAS is perfect for discovering new artists, most of them from Mexico and Chile, but also from Spain, France, Colombia, Costa Rica, Basil and Argentina. If you like dream pop, shoegaze, synthpop maybe the following artists would interest you: Adolecentes sin edad, Le 1991, Almirante Ackbar, Chiosan, Coma Pony and Islas. Also there are some with an experimental alternative vibes like Azain, Budaya, Sunset images and San Charbel. You can find a lot of alternative music, some pop, rock, punk and electronic. there are a lot of bands of this type, such as Miami Club, Niños del Cerro, Los Waldners, Big Big Love, Carambolo, La Era Vulgar,Jean Loup, Burried Under Stars and others.

Continuing with punk, rock, garage, hardcore and some derivatives of them we can find bands like Joliette, Hong Kong Blood Opera, No Somos Marineros, The Raisin’ Sun, Johnny Pequeñín, The Froys, Carrion kids, Sol Flamingo, MXNX. Pop style is present in the form of the artists like Clubz, Helado Infinito, La Bien Querida, Survey Team, La Casa Azul, Mariel Mariel, Planeta No, Marineros and Sandy. There are also some instrumental and ambient songs with electronics, progressive and experimental vibes, for example, The Polar Dream, Avocados, Yopo, Endless and De Osos.

It seems that this has no end, but we are almost finishing. The last genres I want to mention are folk music like Tototomás, Dromedarios Magicos and El Hipnotizador Romantico; techno and electronics: Yeraim Selectah, Macross 82-99, El sueño de la Casa Propia, Moisees and Bufi; rap and hip-hop: Lng Sht and King Doudou; and last but not least, the unknown genres outside Mexico like Tribal, Alan Rosales and Some Cumbia with electronic influences of Sotomayor.

There are a lot of talent in CAS, it’s perfect to find new music and some new sounds like tropical sounds. I definitely recommend the project, not only for being a fundraising instrument for help but also for the great talents gathered and the variety of genres you can discover. Without a doubt, it’s a playlist that you can enjoy at any time.